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Why isn't HN infinite scroll?

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Why isn't HN infinite scroll?

#31

Post by ksec »

I dislike Infinite Scroll especially on Web Pages. HN as a webpage is about as simple as it gets.

For things like Apps, such as Twitter. I am fine. The difference can be reduced to experience. App tends to be so much better with loading / pre-loading all the information. I have never seen any infinite scrolling that works well inside web browser. Even the best of them seems to be janky.

I also want to mention Twitter is more like continuous scroll. Since there is a definite bottom of your main feeds.

Re: Why isn't HN infinite scroll?

#32

Post by quickthrower2 »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #6

Infinite Scroll is often considered a dark design pattern. It makes it easier for users to waste a lot of time idly skimming content without engaging with it while you can occasionally throw ads in to get some money. Hackernews explicitly states they want users to engage meaningfully and critically with the content on the site, and also they don't serve up ads for revenue. Given that, infinite scroll seems likely to…

As well as dark it’s infuriating if scroll isn’t handled correctly. Reddit does this thing where they with you again then bust your scroll position.

Re: Why isn't HN infinite scroll?

#33

Post by krapp »

One reason HN shouldn't use infinite scroll that I'm surprised no one has mentioned yet - this site doesn't have a high enough rate of new content for it to be worthwhile.

Re: Why isn't HN infinite scroll?

#34

Post by mooreds »

brundolf wrote: post #18
yakubin wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - Monotonically-growing DOM slows things down eventually, unless you start de-rendering previous "pages", which adds even more complexity and unpredictability (Ctrl+F doesn't behave as expected, for example) Is this what Twitter is doing? Is this why Ctrl+F almost never works there?

Yeah, I believe so. They pull some additional tricks to keep the scroll bar from going crazy, probably by (I'm guessing) measuring the height of the segments being removed from the DOM and then explicitly padding things to match that size dynamically. There's a more general principle here where, once you start trying to override core browser behaviors, you usually end up with a never-ending rabbit hole of corner case…

+1 for letting the browser do what it's good at. So many people try to re-invent the browser in HTML/the DOM and end up doing it poorly.

Re: Why isn't HN infinite scroll?

#35

Post by bukhtarkhan »

krapp wrote: post #33

One reason HN shouldn't use infinite scroll that I'm surprised no one has mentioned yet - this site doesn't have a high enough rate of new content for it to be worthwhile.

I'm also curious of not updating the UI/UX of the experience here. I feel YC is moving more towards a media company anyways ....

Re: Why isn't HN infinite scroll?

#36

Post by brundolf »

mooreds wrote: post #34
brundolf wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I believe so. They pull some additional tricks to keep the scroll bar from going crazy, probably by (I'm guessing) measuring the height of the segments being removed from the DOM and then explicitly padding things to match that size dynamically. There's a more general principle here where, once you start trying to override core browser behaviors, you usually end up with a never-ending rabbit hole of corner case…

+1 for letting the browser do what it's good at. So many people try to re-invent the browser in HTML/the DOM and end up doing it poorly.

Sometimes there is no choice. For example, want tooltips for each option in your dropdowns? Well, that's simply impossible in the native HTML version.

So if you want them, you're going to have to implement your own dropdown from scratch. Complete with keeping things from going off-screen, overflow behavior, type-in behavior, some sort of mobile-friendly UX for touch devices, etc etc. Oh, and screen readers/accessibility browsers will almost certainly not understand it.

So then the question you have to ask yourself (or your PM) is: how badly do we really need those tooltips? Sometimes the answer is, "our product will be a complete failure without those dropdown-tooltips". Oftentimes, it isn't.

Re: Why isn't HN infinite scroll?

#37

Post by krapp »

bukhtarkhan wrote: post #35
krapp wrote: post #33

One reason HN shouldn't use infinite scroll that I'm surprised no one has mentioned yet - this site doesn't have a high enough rate of new content for it to be worthwhile.

I'm also curious of not updating the UI/UX of the experience here. I feel YC is moving more towards a media company anyways ....

Ironically for a SV based forum full of web developers and startup enthusiasts, Hacker News can be deeply contrarian and antimodern as a culture, so not updating the UI (or at best, only updating it very rarely) has become a matter of pride, as well as a lifestyle brand for YCombinator.

Personally, I'd like to see them add it just to watch HN lose their collective minds.

Re: Why isn't HN infinite scroll?

#38

Post by muzani »

On a technical perspective, it's also quite a bit of work. I've spent at least two weeks on it to sort out the kinks, which is a lot of time for a feature that few people appreciate. It's suitable for apps like TikTok, not so much for something like HN.
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